


Taken out of time

by FlyingDutchy



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-08
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-02-12 01:30:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12948402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlyingDutchy/pseuds/FlyingDutchy
Summary: Kara wakes up on Krypton where she hears she has spent the last thirty years in a coma, of which twenty-four years in a stasis, while Kryptonian scientist tried to cure her from a rare disease. Krypton is still here, her family is still here, and it should be everything she ever wanted.But why does she clearly remember the person most important to her, who she had spent the last eleven years of her life with on Earth instead of in a coma on Krypton? Was it all a dream or was Alex real?





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> Something that came to me. Inspiration is clearly from the Black Mercy episode. 
> 
> I'm still partly writing this. Thus expect Ch2 somewhere next week.

 

 

While familiar she found the ceiling above her head strange. Familiar because she had seen similar ones thousands of times before, strange because it should have been destroyed with the rest of her planet. As the black edges around her vision receded, a pervasive lack of energy came to her. Every fiber of her body was tired, like it hadn’t been used for years.

For the first time in years she felt truly weak. Kryptonite paralysis did not compare the current exhaustion she was feeling. Even the act of opening her eyes had consumed the majority of her energy. Her ears rang, but she heard a faint voice calling her name. She recognized the voice right away, but the person should be long dead.

Kara tried to turn towards the voice, but something kept her head in place. Tubes and wires pulled on her orifices, they were stuck in her nose, mouth, and major arteries. Immediately, she felt a pressure on her hand as something, someone, squeezed it as support. A face appeared in her vision, it seemed to call out to people not in the room, and it didn’t take long for those people to rush in. She tried to remove the tubes penetrating her body, especially the one in her mouth because it prevented her from speaking. Pain flared in her body as she tried that. Suddenly a fluid flowed into her, and that ebbed away as well.

Darkness took her again.

 

 

The next time she woke, she was surrounded by strange but familiar faces. She knew these people, but they looked different. Older.

“Kara?” It was a faint voice, trepid as if she could break any moment now. Confused, she looked towards the woman speaking. She looked just like her mother, but many years older. She wasn’t frail, but there were more lines etched into her face and her hair had lost some of its color. Alura looked quite like Kara had imagined she’d look in those dreams during her early years on Earth. The only difference was a deep pain present in those eyes.

“Mom?” Her own voice sounded weak, like it hadn’t been used in ages.

At the sound of her voice, her mother rushed forward and pulled her into a hug. To her surprise she felt a slight painful discomfort in her muscles as she was pulled from the bed. The irritation subsided quickly and she nuzzled her head into her mother’s neck.

Kara had no idea what was going on. Was it another Black Mercy or a dream? If it was either of those, then she’d like to enjoy it while it lasted. If someone did this to her, then she was sure Alex would burst in any time and save the day, like the usually did.

“What is…” she cleared her dry throat to stop her voice from croaking, “What is going on?”

Her father Zor-El had stepped forward as well, and had put his hands on both her and her mother’s shoulder. She saw that Alura was crying, bawling her eyes out. Unheard of for a Kryptonian on her position. Her father, with whom she always had a more strained relationship, also had wet eyes.

“Oh, honey.” In confusion, she looked at the other people in the room. She recognized Astra with Non, their hands entwined but a hopeful smile on both of their, also older looking, faces. Further in the room was her cousin, a face she recognized easily because it was the only one relatively unchanged. Kal-El was smiling at her as well, together with his Kryptonian parents, who she only recognized from the resemblance to her cousin.

Everyone was smiling at here like she had just accomplished something amazing, but she couldn’t be more confused as to what was going on.

“Where am I?” She moved her head to look out of the window. The landscape was familiar but it looked different as well. Like someone had scrubbed the sky clean and as with earth, the red sky had turned blue. “Krypton?”

“Of course, where else would you be?” Her mother smiled appreciatively. “Of course you’re confused that everything and everyone looks different. You’ve been out of it for a while.”

“How long have I been…?”

“Thirty-one years. Of which you spent the first twenty-five in stasis, and the last six in a coma while our scientists and doctors worked on you.” Her father changed the wall graphic to a hologram image of the current events on Krypton. The year was thirty-one years after the planet was originally destroyed. The news articles showed images of the celebration of the anniversary of the core stabilization efforts, and speculation whether the House of El would go for a new heir.

The last news bulletin struck something inside her and dread filled her to her core.

“Why?” She looked at her father who was the scientist in the family.

“What is the last you remember?” There’s no way she could answer that truthfully. The answer would be going to bed with her sister, comforting her after the break-up with Maggie. The last she could remember of thirty-one years ago was escaping the destruction of Krypton, only to be caught in its blast wave.

Instead, she simply shook her head and tried to look apologetic about it.

“Well, at least you remember us.” Her mother said, who then nodded towards Zor-El to continue. Her father sat down on the edge of her bed and grabbed one of her weak hands. For the first time, she looked at her own arm, and saw how thin they were. There were no muscles on her forearms even her fingers were thin sticks straight out of one of those horror movies Alex liked.

“You were struck by a deadly virus on an assassination attempt by one of Daxam’s citizens. We didn’t know how to stop the virus so we put you in stasis right away.” With a frown on her face, she listened. “With the help of Daxam’s scientists, we finally found a way to reverse the effects six years ago. You’ve been in a coma ever since, slowly recovering your strength. Until this morning.”

Kara had more questions than answers. The primary question she had was: why would someone create this elaborate version of her planet with such an unbelievable backstory for her, there’s no way she would be tricked into believing this is true. Other questions were about a Daxamite would try to kill her, and why their scientists would save her.

Her mother seemed to notice her confused look.

“The Daxamite scientists knew that our planet’s core was unstable after Astra and Non convinced them. We almost tried them for treason since they had reached out to our enemy.” Aunt Astra and her uncle Non didn’t look apologetic at all. “The Daxamite scientists then convinced ours, because they had technology that they used to measure the disruption in the stability. A nationalistic Daxamite thought that by killing the House of El, they would disrupt our work to repair the damage and that Krypton would explode. What the general population of Daxam didn’t know was that the destruction of Krypton would also mean the end of their planet.”

In Kara’s version of events, Astra’s arrest was a year before Krypton blew up. Exactly twenty-five years before she arrived on Earth. Exactly the time she spent in stasis.

A gnawing sense of terror started to grow in her stomach and around her heart.

“So Krypton didn’t blow up? You didn’t send Kal-El to Earth when he was a boy and me to look over him?”

“Earth? What is that?” Her father said who looked at Jor-El who shrugged unknowingly. Kara’s eyes hardened. This ploy wouldn’t work on her. There was no way that Earth wasn’t real. She was now convinced that whoever designed this false reality, should’ve made sure that at least her or Kal’s father knew about Earth. Denying its existence completely just smells like a cover up.

“No Kara, Krypton is still here as you can see. It never blew up because we were right on time to save it.” Her mother tried to convince her. “Maybe you dreamt something during your stasis? You were worried about its destruction right before we were attacked and your brain activity during stasis reflected the possibility that you were dreaming.”

Kara nodded, unconvinced but she would figure a way out of here in some way. And if she didn’t, she only had to wait until Alex did.

 

 

It took a month before Kara was growing seriously worried. She had been stuck to the bed, not having her superpowers meant that recovery had to be done in the original slow manner, and couldn’t work on escaping this mind-trap she was in. Her worry had increased by the lack of rescue attempts, or attempts to convince her this reality was real. Though she speculated that the lack of attempts was an attempt in itself. Why would anyone try to convince their reality was real, outside of philosophical debates?

“Little One, have you heard the news?” Astra strode into the room. Kara was doing sit-ups in her bed and her aunt cast a frown towards her for doing exercise she wasn’t supposed to be doing yet. “You have been cleared.”

In a fluid move, she tried to jump from her bed by pulling her legs back and launching herself from her back like everyone did in those karate movies on the real world. Instead, her lack of powers betrayed her and she stumbled out of the bed. Astra was at her side right away with a worried expression.

“It seemed easier in my mind.” Kara grumbled at her newly forming bruises, even if her ego was bruised the most.

“You were not created as a warrior, but you fight your lack of strength admirably.” Her aunt helped her up. Kara hugged the woman close. Even if she was stuck in some bizarre universe, she indulged herself in these moments. She inhaled the familiar scent, and tried not to remember that Alex killed her and that it would hurt when she escaped this place.

“There, there. It’s alright, dear.” Astra blew over her new bruise, like mothers on Krypton did to their children and Kara got annoyed at the gesture.

Everyone was kind of treating her like the child they expected her to be. She looked like a twenty-year old, but they expected her to have the mind of the teenager she had been when she was struck with the virus. Instead, she had all her memories of her experiences on Earth and had the mind of a twenty-five year old who had experience in kicking serious ass—and hauling coffee for miss Grant. The latter was more impressive actually.

“I’m not a child, aunt.” She crossed her arms defiantly. Astra nodded dejectedly so Kara put a fake-big smile on her face. “But I’m happy I finally can get out of here. Time to escape Alcatraz.”

“You keep using these strange new words—what is an Alcatraz?” Kara simply shook her head.

“Something from my ‘dreams’, a prison.” She was annoyed that she hadn’t been able to convince anyone that this wasn’t real, or that here dreams had been more than dreams. They felt as real to her as anything else. In fact, she refused to believe that her memories were fake.

Winn who had a crush on her at first, but was otherwise one of her most trustworthy friends—if a bit easily scared or convinced that he was helping her when he in fact wasn’t. James, who infuriated her when he became Guardian, but had a heart of gold. J’onn, a mentor who had become a father figure in the recent years. Cat—her cold exterior hid a beautiful personality but required heavy tools to dig it up. Eliza and Jeremiah, her foster parents who raised her almost as much as her real ones, but more importantly, they raised her sister as well. Alex, who wasn’t perfect, but the closest anyone could be. There’s no way she could have invented someone like Alex.

Kara walked to the dressing room. Despite the fact that his was a hospital, her family was very privileged and a hospital room was basically a luxury hotel suite, if she’d have to compare it to Earthly standards. She found herself doing that more often, quite to opposite to what she used to do on Earth. Back when she first arrived, she compared everything to Krypton but now she had lived on Earth almost longer than on this planet, or she’d dreamt she lived there. Things were confusing for Kara at the moment.

Her arms were less skinny than when she had just woken up. The physical exercise was doing her body good, and she knew enough from when she had trained with Alex. She didn’t need to exercise to gain muscles on Earth, instead she had used it for control. She didn’t know that exercise was this tiresome.

“I want to go to the archives first.” She said while undressing and getting a good look at the ribs and hip bones protruding due to the lack of meat and muscle. Kara didn’t like that and while she was in this strange universe she would eat and train to get some weight. She pulled a white dress over her head. The emblem of the house of El was embroidered on both shoulders with golden thread. Kara quite wished that Alex would see her in this dress. “I need to do some research.”

She had made plan. It was quite simple: go to the archives, find Earth, show proof to parents. She had never shown interest in the distant star systems and ‘primitive’ species. The Krypton definition of primitive was simply ‘not-FTL-capable’, so that included humanity.

“Research? Are you choosing to follow your father’s footsteps then?” Kara shrugged. She remembered that both of her parents had pulled on her to follow in either of their footsteps. While she had secretly preferred was becoming a diplomat for xeno-relationships.

“I don’t know yet.” She followed Astra into the main lobby. The woman at the desk, O’ra, was eyeing her carefully. Kara had tried to escape a few times, but her literal lack of power had slowed her down.

“I’d like to check out Kara Zor-El on behalf of Alura Zor-El.”

Kara didn’t wait until her aunt was done and slipped outside. The world of Krypton was different than she’d remembered. The look of the city hadn’t changed, it was everything else. The sky and the ground were more colorful, there was even some vegetation. Fewer particles were present in the skies such that Rao’s light no longer scattered red across the atmosphere, but was now a nice blueish color. She’d even heard that there were lakes now on Krypton, while those had been drained centuries ago to make place for industrial capacity.

She heard her aunt call out, but she was already making her way through familiar streets towards the archives. There were few Kryptonians on foot, most preferred the hover pods for travel, but Kara wanted to see what her planet could have become, had it not been destroyed. She hoped to imprint this on her vision so that she could draw it the moment she returned.

Astra caught up to her when she reached the entrance to the Archives. A huge looming doorway lumbered over her. Two statues, a man and a woman, seemed to be holding up the walls. The door itself was a force field which was almost always deactivated. The Archives were a place for learning, and everyone in Krypton could access it, though not everyone had access to the same data. Kara walked inside and saw the many scholars, wearing robes of different hues of blue, accessing different kinds of media. Most were using holographic AI to find what they were looking for.

“What are you looking for?” Astra sat down next to her while Kara browsed voiced her identification. Being of the House of El meant that she could access all but the most sensitive information.

“Show me the planet Earth, Sol System, Sector 2814 in the Milky Way galaxy.” The non-descript shape of the hologram changed immediately to the Rao system and zoomed out. It zoomed out to show the entirety of the Andromeda Galaxy on its collision course—even though not a single star would probably collide with another, space was rather empty, but maybe it would steal a system or two—with the Milky Way galaxy. It then zoomed in towards a system about two-thirds of the spiral arms. While Kara expected it to center on the green and blue planet she called home now, it didn’t. It got stuck on the yellow star.

“ _Planet Earth not found. The Sol system in Sector 2814 of the Milky way contains the following planets…”_ Stumped, Kara looked at the transparent image depicting the planet’s orbits. Right where she expected Earth to be, there was nothing. There was Mercury, Venus, and then the red planet of Mars.

“No.” Her voice croaked on the single syllable. What if…? She shook her head ignoring the concerned stares that Astra cast her direction. She couldn’t think like that. “Maybe whoever designed this place knew to remove Earth from the database.”

A nagging feeling on the back of her mind told her that was not the case. Until now, everything seemed to be as true as everyone told her. She couldn’t find a single inconsistent part of this reality, and she had searched, because normally it were exactly those inconsistencies that allowed her to break free. She started searching the database for anything she knew, to find anything that contradicted itself in a major way.

“Kara?” She felt a hand on her shoulder. Expecting it to be Astra, she saw her mother standing there with a worried frown. Astra was standing behind her. “Are you back?”

She looked past her mother’s form and saw that the sun had disappeared from the sky. How long had she been here?

Her aunt stepped forward as well. “I was worried when you didn’t respond.”

“Maybe it was too soon to let her out of the hospital.” Kara shook her head vehemently. She needed to be out here, to make sure that she either finds a way back to Alex or that Alex can find a way here.

She let herself be lead to the house of El residence, a prestigious tower in the center of Kryptonopolis, the planet’s capital. Each of the Great Houses of Krypton had a tower, and it was sort of a pissing game to see who could build the largest. No building back on Earth came close to their immense sizes.

At least, they used to. The tower was down-sized. Its materials were re-used to restore Krypton. A symbolic sacrifice, she thought, because none of the Great Houses really needed the building. The tower looked half-done done. Like a body stopping at the neck, as if someone forgot to put a head on it.

The guards, unfamiliar to her, greeted her with a smile. They welcomed her back while they had never seen her in this place. Still, she greeted them politely with a forced smile on her face. Her mother asked if she wanted to join for dinner but Kara declined. She said she wasn’t hungry and wanted to rest.

Her room was the same as when she left Krypton. It was as if it had been frozen in time like she had been during stasis. There was evidence that this wasn’t the case though. She could smell it was regularly cleaned, but certain spots like below her bed or her dresser were left untouched. The clothes in them were different. She would no longer fit the clothes she had been wearing six, or thirty-one, years ago.

Kara sat down on the bed and buried her face in her hands. The fake smile she had put up crumbled and her shoulders started shaking. She tried to convince herself that this was all a dream, all in her mind, and it wasn’t real. But something was convincing her that Earth never had been real in the first place, that everything was in her mind.

She had everything she wished for during the darkest moments after Krypton’s destruction, but why did she feel so empty inside. Like something had been ripped violently from her chest and she couldn’t live without it.

 

 

Sweat scattered from her brow as she violently jerked her head out of the path of the robot’s arms. She struck with her own fist in retaliation, hitting the droid where its kidney would have been. Her punch landed with a solid hit and she winced at the pain shooting through her hand. Remembering Alex’s fighting style, she dodged another swipe from the droid and kicked at its shins. It lost one of its footholds and with crunch it fell to the ground.

Immediately she pounced on it, ready to deliver a finishing blow when she saw two feet standing in the doorway to the training room. Kal-El’s familiar face but unfamiliar eyes stared back to her. She always felt that she could tell people apart by looking into someone’s eyes, and this Kal-El was not Clark Kent.

He looked impressed but wary at the anger she had poured onto the poor robot. The draining droid was still in one piece though, unlike some of his brothers. “That’s not very diplomatic of you.”

She snapped up towards him. How did he know about that? He had been just a little kid when she had been put into stasis. He looked guilty when he saw her accusing expression. “When I was a kid everyone was always talking about you, how they missed you and hoped you would recover. I stole away into your room and looked through one private holofile.”

“Oh, okay.”

Kara blinked disappointed tears from her eyes. She’d hoped she had finally found something that contradicted this universe after six months of looking.

It had been six months for her. Six months trapped in this reality, six months of not seeing the one person she needed the most. Every day there was a battle, unseen to everyone else, in her head. One side was convinced this was real, the other simply knew that Alex was real and that she had to find her.

She wondered if she was strapped on a bed in the real world, where Alex was looking desperately at finding a way to save her for the past half year. Maybe time passed differently here and for Alex it had just been a week. She hoped that, because she didn’t want her sister to feel the same despair she was experiencing.

“Where’d you learn how to fight like that? Astra was always the warrior but those moves are not the fluid Kryptonian styles.” Kara walked through a cleanser which quickly evaporated all the sweat from her face. She’d been fighting purely on what she’d learned from sparring with Alex. Quick jabs, short thrusts and fast kicks designed to strike quickly without endangering yourself. Perfect for fighting opponents stronger than you like was often the case with Alex taking on aliens.

She hung on the fact that she knew these moves. They proved effective against training droids and she even managed to take out a guard in a sparring session, which meant she either was a genius and dreamt up her own fighting style or she knew it from experience. With all her willpower, she believed the latter.

She couldn’t explain it to Kal-El so she shrugged dispassionately. “Just something I’ve been working on.”

“I get it though.” He walked into the room and sniffed. Kara smelled her own sweat in the air, so it must be worse for her cousin. “Having your brush with death means you want to protect yourself.”

The reason was wrong while the objective had been guessed correctly. She felt powerless, even if she was no different from any other Kryptonian. “Something like that.”

Kal-El frowned at her. “You’re different from what people told me. Your family thinks the same but they’re afraid to say it.”

She crossed her arms and squinted through her eyelids. “How so?”

“Like that.” With both hands he motioned to her. “Everyone told me you were Rao’s bright light personified. Always smiling, always ready to help anyone, and always talkative. Now you’re reclusive, frowning, and sad.”

“And you think you can fix that?” The man who was but wasn’t superman shook his head.

“No.” He indicated for her to sit down on the mats and he sat next to her. “You don’t really know me and have no real connection to me besides the familial ties. There’s no one to disappoint here so maybe you feel you can talk freely.”

The weight on her chest lifted a teensy bit. Kara didn’t want to start talking, because she felt that she could break apart at any moment when she did. Kal-El was right. She didn’t want to talk to her mother, father or aunt on the off chance that this was all real and they would be thoroughly disappointed with her or call her crazy. What if this was real and she was the one living in a fantasy world?

Maybe talking about it with someone would help. Kara opened her mouth but only managed to croak a single name. “Alex... I…”

A violent sob wrecked her and she felt her cousin’s hands supporting her. “Tell me what’s wrong. Who is Alex?”

“She’s gone—I don’t know where. It feels like something critical is missing ever since I woke up. Like someone ripped my heart out, like every cell in my body is searching for something no longer there.” The last sentence was a breathless whisper. “She’s my… during my stasis or coma… I don’t know. You must think I’m crazy.”

Instead of the incredulous expression she’d been expecting, she was met with a very grave one. The man folded his arms and looked past her thoughtfully. His serious expression reminded her that he was, or had been, Superman.

“This Alex, you say you met her during your coma?” Kara nodded. “I don’t think you’re crazy.”

“Thank Rao.” She _knew_ she sounded crazy.

“I’ve read about the feeling you described. Multiple Kryptonians have described it in the exact same way.” Kal-El pulled out a data core and started browsing until he found the entry under mythos and biology, Kara wondered how those two things could be related.

“ _Shesurzrhymin_.” The Kryptonian equivalent of the human concept of soulmates. Apparently it was proven in Kryptonian physiology if she believed what was written there. Kal-El seemed skeptical but the descriptions fit the exact feeling Kara was experiencing. Something missing in your heart, a hole in your chest, every cell in your body missing something crucial. Not every Kryptonian had it, and its effects could only be noticed when there was an absence after losing your mate. “But how…?”

“If what you’re feeling is this, then there is no way that you dreamt something that wasn’t real on a pure biological and physical level in some way.” The truth smacked hard into her chest. If this world was real, then that didn’t exclude Alex from being real either. Maybe there was another plane of existence, or maybe she was here somewhere and Kara had to find her.

She felt a burst of strength and hope. Kal-El smiled supportively. “Maybe it’s time you told me what you experienced during your stasis.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No one checked this work to see if it's legible, so if you spot any mistakes please let me know.
> 
> Also let me know if you liked it ;)


	2. Part Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Update 20-12-2017: Added an extra scene

 

 

 

There was an invigorated conviction inside of her. Knowing that someone at least believed that Alex was not made up was enough to spur her back into action. All she needed was something that proved to her whether this was the real world and Alex was simply somewhere else, or something that disproved that so she could escape this heavenly hell she was trapped in.

So Kara pored over the data cores surrounding her. She even asked scribes to fashion old paper documents which detailed their thousands years of history in its early days. Sometimes she got help from Kal-El. Her cousin was infinitely more helpful in this universe than her own—though she was still doubtful whether this was her own or not.

“What about this one?” Kal-El pointed at the hologram of a planet. It was green and blue like Earth, but there were no polar caps and the continents were shaped differently. Kara shook her head. There were also no signs of life, and certainly not of intelligent life which emitted radio waves.

Kal-El was combing through the planetary Archives while she was searching more towards this supposed soulmate biology that Kryptonians had. What she found indicated that Alex had been real. All records showed that each Kryptonian had a possibility of a soulmate and the pain of loss was only felt when the relationship was ended prematurely and incomplete. This explained why most didn’t feel it, because there was little conflict and very few diseases on Krypton these days, allowing them to live a full and complete life before dying of natural causes.

The pain she was feeling meant that her relationship with Alex had ended prematurely, at least to her hormones and mind. Pain was the sign that the body gave out when something was amiss, after all.

“Could you show me the system it’s supposed to be in again?” Kara recalled the Sol System of the Milky Way galaxy from the data cores. To anyone else’s eyes, it looked like a normal star system with a collection of planets and a common yellow star. Nothing special.

Not to her.

She pointed at the space between the third and second planet. There was theoretically more than enough space for an additional planet to orbit there. “Here’s where it should be, everything else is exactly the same but the planet is not there.”

“And you lived there during your coma?” Kara nodded. Her cousin moved with his hands in the air to turn the hologram around, as if looking at it from a different angle would tell them that something was wrong.

Kara couldn’t look at the evidence that something was wrong with this universe. Seeing it made her heart ache even more. She swallowed nervously and turned away from the hologram back to her notes. Half an hour later her aunt walked into the room, looking surprised to see the two of them surrounded by old manuscripts and several holograms.

“Look at you two being studious. I knew you had it in you to become a scientist, Kara.” She felt guilty for deceiving her aunt, because Kara had no intention of becoming that, she only had a single goal in mind. “It’s dinner time, you need fuel for your brains.”

There was a certain tension at the table. Her parents still found it difficult to reconcile the new Kara with the one in their mind. Though she had lately become less docile and fragile, instead becoming driven with finding her Alex. To Kal-El’s credit, he had not told anyone what was going on with her and her _Shesurzrhymin._  

“Dad, can I ask you a question of scientific nature?” A smile came onto Zor-El’s piqued face.

“Of course.”

“Can you disturb a physical system by removing or changing something, but everything else remains the same?”

Her father shook her head. “No. Even rudimentary quantum mechanics shows that simply measuring a system changes it, something we know for centuries. The bigger the influence, the bigger the change.”

She sprung up. “That’s it!”

Alura and Zor-El looked at her funnily as she rushed forward to kiss her father’s cheek. She grabbed Kal-El by the arm—the abrupt pull made him miss his mouth with the fork—and dragged him over back into her room. She reached for the hologram that was still focused on the Sol system and held it out in front of Kal-El’s face.

“What am I supposed to see?” Her cousin was confused and more than likely annoyed at the interruption of his dinner.

“It’s the same.” Kara pointed at the orbits of the planets.

“It’s the same?”

“It’s _exactly_ the same.”

Kal-El’s eyes widened at Kara’s smug expression. “And it shouldn’t be the same.”

Suddenly she remembered something Alex had told her one day. It was about the motion and discovery of the planets in their system and how they tried to explain the peculiar orbits of the planets. It all came down to gravity, and how each object pulled on all other ones. It was basic science, discovered almost a millennia ago on Krypton, but the beauty of science was that it was always true.

“Compute the orbit characteristics of the Sol System based on the known masses of the planets.” The hologram shifted. The lines of the planets warped and changed in front of their eyes.

“This means…”

“This means that our database is incorrect. The planets cannot have the described orbits based on the properties.”

“How do you know all this?”

“Alex told me once.” She was now convinced even more that this was some strange reality. Someone or something had tempered with the database and removed Earth from it so Kara would not discover its existence. She had found the flaw, the one crack she needed. Kara only needed to command the AI one more thing. “Add a planet at an orbital distance of two-thirds of the third planet, with ten times the mass of the third planet and then compute the orbits of the system again.”

The lines shifted back when the planet was added. Exactly as they were before.

“This means that there are two explanations.” Kal-El scratched his head worriedly. “Either someone made a mistake, or someone deliberately removed the planet but did not adjust the other values.”

Kara shrugged. “It’s an unassuming system in a far-away galaxy. Who would even go looking there?” Unless you knew what you wanted to find.

It was only the first step, but it was something. Earth did exist here, and if it did, Alex might exist as well. Finding her sister might be her way out of here.

 

 

The bustling life of the ginormous alien—it occurred to her that she found this place alien, instead of home—city wasn’t too different from National City, all things considered. Kara was taking a stroll through downtown Kryptonopolis with her parents. Despite life not being that different, the sights definitely were. Large domes and towers sprouted up from the flat ground on which it was built. The light that reached the bottom was reflected and refracted by the crystals used for construction and, most importantly, decoration of the various structures.

High above them were various highways for the flying vehicles, indicated by floating circular hoops through which the traffic flowed. Various traffic and direction lights were indicated on those hoops. Despite being an advanced society, they found that strict traffic lanes worked best even for flying cars.

“How are you recovering, Kara?” Her mother asked her tentatively. Kara wished she could answer truthfully, that every day was getting harder instead of easier.

“I’m fine.” Kara shrugged. Her mother sighed, the elderly woman probably knew that she was lying. Kara pointed at the beautiful city in front of her. “It’s just so different.”

She remembered the fog and the constant tremors. The city had started to come apart the last time she had set foot in it. It had started slow, just like the decline of their entire planet. Kryptonians were avid engineers, and had built the city to last, so the damage was limited to appearances and not structural. Which was why the decorations that gave the city its luxurious flair were so impressive to her even after six months.

Her father chuckled and pointed at a large crest of another house. “Remember when that crest was damaged and it meant something completely different?”

“You told me it meant ‘idiot’ and I believed it so I texted it to someone in class that made fun of me.” Kara’s cheeks still burned when her parents had come to the Acolyte’s halls to explain to the mentors that they had told her it meant something else than ‘someone that fornicated with Rao’. “It took me days to fully trust you again.”

She laughed at the memory and her father joined her while her mother seemingly had not forgiven the man, by the look of her glare. “Men.”

Kara felt a pang at her heart. How often had she wished for exactly this? To be on Krypton with her own people, with her family. Now she had everything she wished for, she wanted nothing more to go and find Alex. Finding Alex meant that she had to leave her parents once again.

“Mom, dad?” Her mother hummed and her father nodded affirmatively. “Did you… were you… how was it for you when I was in coma for the last thirty years?”

Alura’s eyes briefly flashed to her father’s then they both looked away from Kara and each other. The three of them had stopped walking and were now in a huge open square surrounded by other Kryptonians—it was very similar to a park but the greenery was missing. Her mother was the first to respond. “It was… difficult, especially at first.”

Her father nodded. “The first years were the worst of our lives. It took a while for us to adjust.”

“During which we lashed out. At first at the world, then at each other.” Kara felt the pain that was laced in the voice of her mother. Alura took a step closer to Zor-El, who entangled his fingers with hers. “We both said, and did, things that we didn’t mean.”

“I’m sorry.” Both their parents shook their heads, it wasn’t her fault. But she wasn’t saying sorry about that, but pre-emptively. Hearing that her parents, the stoic scientist Zor-El and stalwart judicator Alura, had suffered so much during her stasis was painful to hear. Kara’s conviction wavered at seeing the empty, faraway look in her mother’s eyes. She stepped into her parent’s embrace and hugged both of them close. Not to her surprise, she felt her eyes burn and she couldn’t stop herself from sniffling.

“It’s not your fault, Kara.” Her mother patted her back. Despite being almost a head taller than her mother, she felt like a small child again in the way she was comforted by her parents. The emotions of the past eleven years she spend on Earth missing her family spilled out of the bucket she kept them in. Kara couldn’t control her shaking shoulders as she hugged the both of them with all her might. Her parent’s didn’t know the full reasons, they didn’t know she had an extra eleven years of memories and emotions stored inside of her. “Here, here.”

They stood there, drawing awkward stares but both her parents didn’t mind. Kara almost scolded herself, her upbringing breaking through, for shaming the House of El in public like this. Luckily, her parents didn’t seem to mind.  

“I’m sorry.” She hiccupped as she untangled herself and wiped her eyes.

“Don’t be.” Her father patted her shoulder. He smiled gently. She felt safe and comforted by her parents, something that, despite their best efforts, Eliza and Jeremiah never truly achieved.

 

 

It took another week in which Kara punched another few droids to smithereens in frustration before Kal-El made his discovery. Kara worked out her anger and despair on the unfortunate hunks of metal. Her cousin looked at her in trepidation, rapidly switching his attention between her and the pile of destroyed droids. The destruction she caused was purely based on her own non-supercharged strength. She hypothesized that her experience as Supergirl had honed her skills and this translated even to her weakened body.

“You found out how the database was altered?” Kal-El nodded in response, Kara immediately dropped her exercise and snapped to attention. This could lead to the next clue as to whoever was behind this.

“I think I did, you’d better sit down.” Worried, Kara sat down. “Everyone that alters a database leaves a signature. Requesting access to those signatures is classified, so they’re scrambled to be illegible to anyone. I managed to get access to the scrambled version.”

“So you don’t know?” Her cousin shook her head.

“I recognized a pattern—I had seen that before. It’s my father.”

In alarm, Kara backed up and away from her cousin. He raised his arms, pals spread wide and tried to ease her from lashing out at him. “Did you know?”

“No. I came to you right away, you probably want to know why he removed the planet from the database.” Kara nodded. “Look, little Zor-El, there might be a perfectly valid reason for it that has nothing to do with your Alex.”

Kara wasted no time and sprinted away from the training dojo. She took the elevator to one of the upper floors where Jor-El’s room was. She burst through the doors surprising the man who was reading some documents.

“Kara?” He looked up in alarm. “What are you—”

“Why did you remove Earth from the Archive?” She snapped angrily.

“What are you talking about?”

“Third planet, Sol system, Sector 2814 of the Milky Way galaxy.” Jor-El’s eyes widened.

“That’s Earth? It was designated as Terra, I didn’t make the link. Sit down, Kara.” The man seemed unconcerned about it all while Kara was literally shaking on her legs, bristling with anger. “I removed Earth on request of the Krypton Council, because I was the one that promoted Earth as a planet of refuge when our own was on the verge of destruction.”

Kara was too agitated to sit so she simply stood while Jor-El explained that he had discovered a planet in the Milky Way system with intelligent life of similar origins as Kryptonian life. He proposed it as an escape route, but the council forbade its people from intergalactic travel. Jor-El had secretly made plans to send his wife and infant son to Earth, and would tell his brother Zor-El about it when the day came so he could send Kara.

“When the council decided to take action and save Krypton, they wanted to prevent anyone from escaping the responsibilities. Therefore it was requested to conceal its existence.”

It was another blow to her confidence. Kara had listened and studied the man intently while he spoke and she couldn’t see him lying. If Jor-El was telling the truth, than this meant that Earth was not removed because of her, but that there was a valid reason for it. Even if she thought the council was too oppressive towards her people, they didn’t do it just to spite them.

“I want to use your intergalactic pod.” She stated bluntly.

Jor-El shook his head. “Even if I still had it, it would still be treason. Ever since the accident that destroyed our moon, intergalactic FTL travel is forbidden. Even all nearby space travel is strictly regulated.”

Kara didn’t care, she moved to stand behind the man, and her back was turned to him while she looked out over the city from the vantage point of her House’s tower. “I need to go to Earth.”

“I can’t let you commit treason, Kara.” She’d been afraid of that answer. Now Jor-El knew the truth, he would spread the word and she would be under scrutiny and unable to leave. Kara was left with little to no choice, perhaps bursting in here without thinking hadn’t been a good idea.

Well, treason it is then.

In a smooth move she spun around and wrapped her hand around Jor-El’s mouth. His muffled screams didn’t reach other ears. Human and Kryptonian physiology wasn’t that different so she quickly found the pressure point in his neck. She pressed hard and the man struggled less and less. Until he collapsed, unconscious. He would be out of it for a few hours, unless someone woke him.

Kara heard footsteps outside the doors. She dragged the man away behind the desk right as Kal-El burst into the room. Seeing his incapacitated father, he raised his fists. “What did you do, Kara?”

“What I had to. He’s fine, but he was going to tell everyone that I wanted to leave the planet.” She relaxed her stance to seem less threatening while slowly but casually approaching her cousin. “What will you do, Kal-El, if I wanted to leave Krypton tonight?”

His eyes flashed quickly between her and his father. He was tense and Kara read his eyes. “I would look the other way.”

He relaxed as she unsquared her shoulders. Falling for her ruse, she kicked with a roundhouse kick that connected to his back with the full force. The wind was knocked out of him and he flew through study, collapsing against some scientific instruments. “I’m sorry, cousin. I really am.”

Kal-El was stronger than his father and he stumbled back to his feet. She quickly struck out multiple times, but she knew she was both stronger and more skilled than her counterpart. The man that used to be Superman tried to block her jabs and kicks, but they still connected to his stomach and ribs. He tried to call out, but she launched herself at the man and clamped her hand around his mouth.

The move exposed her and she took a few hits before she managed to catch both of his hands with her one.

“I will be gone after tonight. Take care of my mother and father, tell them I’m sorry but I have to leave.” Just in case this was real. She bound his hands with her belt and taped his mouth shut with some adhesive found in the room. It would not be long until someone found them, so she had to hurry. With one apologetic look to her cousin she told him goodbye, for good probably.

 

 

Kara’s first stop was her aunt. She was part of the diplomatic protection corps, if there was anyone that had access to the pods it would be her. She kept a smooth unworried face with regards to her aunt, but inside she was a nervous wreck. Kara didn’t know how long she had left but she needed information about the pods.

She was together with her father and mother on one of the many balconies of the El Tower. She looked up at the few stars visible through the light pollution of Krytonopolis. “It’s a pity that we don’t travel amongst the stars since Jax-Ur’s failure.”

Astra nodded. “That single accident decades ago resulted in the deaths of a million of our people. The Council’s reaction was nothing but extreme and irrational. It won’t be long until we explore the stars once again, Little One.”

Kara flicked her eyes towards her parents and bend over towards Astra conspiratorially. “Before, you know, I used to dream of becoming an intergalactic diplomat. It won’t happen now, probably. Since all spaceships are destroyed.”

She pulled her saddest face, powered by her desire to see Alex again, and it seemed to work. “Well, let me tell you something, not all pods are destroyed. They’re just… repurposed.”

The smile Kara displayed on her face was real, if caused by something else than what her aunt probably assumed. “What do we use them for now then?”

“Missions to Daxam, mostly.” That was all she needed. Kara knew which spaceport she needed to find, the exact one where her aunt was stationed when she was on duty.

“Oh, _that_ place.” Disdain was evident in her voice. She always disliked Daxamites, Mon-El’s mother and her goons reaffirmed that hatred. And in this universe, it was even more justified because they were responsible for her coma. “I have no desire to go there.”

“I don’t blame you.” Kara faked a yawn—very convincingly since her years of pretending to be human—and stood up while stretching her muscles. She bent forward and kissed her aunt on her cheeks while hugging her closely. “Anything wrong?”

Kara shook her head, blinking the tears away at having to say goodbye to her aunt. If she gets back to her reality, Astra would be dead again, and if she wouldn’t then Astra would think her a traitor. “Just saying goodnight. I love you, Aunty.”

She moved to her parents and hugged them as close as possible. They looked surprised, she’d never been as touchy with them since her revival. “Love you dad, mom.”

“Of course, Kara. We love you too.” She felt their lips on her cheeks, even her father kissed her when he normally would stoically express his feelings without such gestures. “What brought this on?”

The tearful hiccup was real. She was losing her family all over again, but this time by choice. Her heart fluttered painfully in her chest at the agony of loss. “Just some things roaming around in my head. Don’t mind me too much. I know I’ve been distant lately, but please know that I’ll always love you, okay?”

“Of course, dear. We love you too, unconditionally.” She hoped that was true with all of her being, because she was going to introduce some conditions tonight.

“Goodnight.” She bade her farewell. She felt three pairs of eyes watch her inquisitively as she retreated from the balcony.

Kara was ready for the final step in her plan: get to Earth.

 

 

Nights in the city are not quiet and Kara uses this to her advantage. The space port was not deserted, but there was just a skeleton crew manning the station. There was hardly any terrorism or war on Krypton. All threats were from outer space. Normally.

Wind whipped around her as she was hidden in a dark corner on a nearby tower. The spaceport itself was located across a thirty meter gap and loomed over her. She could see the few patrols along the edges of the plateaus. The pods would be stored inside, ready to be launched along a runway pointing straight up. Kara had used Astra’s access codes to download the schematics of the building.

The moment the patrol walked out of her field of view, she got out of hiding and untied her improvised grapple hook. Instead of the standard hook she’d seen Alex use often enough, Kara used an omni-magnet—a magnet capable of attaching to almost anything once activated. Kara’s target was a few floors below her, across the gap. If she jumped and missed, she would fall to a certain death.

That’s why she wouldn’t miss.

With all her might she threw the grapple-hook to the tower in front of her. With a clank, barely audible over the harsh winds, it attached itself to the wall. Kara attached the other piece of the rope to the wall next to her at chest height, establishing a descending rope bridge. She tested the strength by pulling on the rope with all her strength and it held. Kara hooked her legs and arms over the rope, bungling upside down.

Supergirl never experienced vertigo, Kara Zor-El of Krypton does. She looked down, up from her perspective of the world, and looked into the deep gap between the towers. Her stomach flipped and she had to swallow a bout of fear. She let her tight grip on the ropes go and gravity did the rest. Kara slid along the rope. She smelled burning fabric as she gripped the rope again to slow down. She was glad she brought gloves, she remembered burning her fingers last week when touching a pan that was too hot.

She stopped right on top of a small ledge which led into a small balcony, the door to the hangar bays were located there. Kara saw no guards patrolling here, so she quickly punched in Astra’s access code together with her aunt’s fingerprints she printed into these gloves she gained access to the insides. She was really glad she brought these gloves.

The door led into a huge corridor with all kinds of similar, but slightly different pods all around the edges in different docking bays. In the center of the room was a circular platform that could turn from horizontal to vertical, so that a ship could launch straight up. All docking ports were connected to this one by rails, and from what she could gather the rails and sequence could all be controlled from the pods themselves. Kara had one advantage, if this world was just a different path of her own—something she thought highly likely by this point—then her and Kal-El’s pods would be somewhere located here as well. And she knew exactly what those looked like.

Kara snuck around the perimeter of the hangar bay until she located her pod on the far-end of the corridor. It was difficult to remain unseen, green glowing pathways illuminated the walls and floors, leaving very little space in the shade. When the sole guard had his back turned to her, she jumped him and with a quick jab—which she felt just had hard in her fist—she knocked him out cold.

She swallowed the bile in her throat, attacking an innocent went against most of her principles. She consoled herself by making sure the man was alive and would recover, hopefully when she was long gone.

The road to her pristine white pod, in which she had spent twenty-four years in the Phantom Zone and two more years in the faster-than-light travel from Krypton to Earth, was clear. Luckily for her, most of that time was spent asleep in stasis, like she would be doing again on this trip. Kara sprinted towards her pod and started punching in the start sequence to unlock the cabin. With deft fingers, she switched the symbols from sleep mode to launch and with a hiss the transparent pane split across the top and folded away along the sides of the egg-like shape.

Kara pushed from the ground and pulled herself up to get inside the pod when she felt a hand on her shoulder hold her back. The cold metal of a gun was pressed into the back of her head. Kryptonians had weapons, and they were more deadly than their human counterparts.

“Stop right there, Little One.”

“Aunt Astra,” Kara tightens her muscles but doesn’t dare to turn around. “How did you…?”

“Something was off in the way you wished me goodnight. It felt more like a goodbye.” The fingers tightened around her shoulder, digging into it painfully. “Now tell me who are you and what you’ve done with Kara Zor-El. What did the virus do to her?”

“This isn’t the virus.” Kara shook her head and slowly raised her hands in the air, a universal sign of surrender. “I just need to go to Earth.”

With deliberate but careful movements she tried to face her assailant. Astra, probably not fully aware of Kara’s prowess, let her turn around so she could get a good look at her niece. “You mean that planet that you couldn’t find?”

Kara nodded, hands still raised but she was ready to strike at the weapon her aunt was carrying at a moment’s notice. “It exists and I found it. Jor-El had hidden it. I believe my _Shesurzrhymin_ is there.”

“A _Soulmate_? You’ve been in coma for years, you’ve never been to this ‘Earth’.” In that instance Kara knew she couldn’t convince Astra, who was shaking her head softly in a pitiful way. Something you did at someone who truly lost their mind. “I can’t let you commit treason.”

“Then don’t.” For an instant her aunt was confused at Kara’s request to stop her. With both hands she reached for the gun in Astra’s, one went under the weapon to push up while the other pushed it to the side. In reflex, Astra pressed the trigger and an energy bolt flew through the room striking one of the other pods. Kara twisted Astra’s arm and her aunt quickly abandoned the weapon.

Kara’s stomach was left exposed so Astra struck there with her other arm. Astra did not hold back and the breath was knocked out of her. As Kara was punched back, her aunt jumped for the weapon. Kara recovered quickly and kicked the weapon away to the other side of the room.

Astra struck on her over-extended leg, and a resounding crack echoed through the otherwise deserted hallway. Kara bit the inside of her cheek at the pain but managed to jump back and put some distance between the two of them.

Breathing heavily, Kara rolled her shoulders and crouched slightly while testing the wounded leg. Astra stepped forwards slightly with one leg and kept most of her weight on the leg towards the back in a classic Kryptonian battle stance. Her aunt was a seasoned warrior, but Kara was younger and had experience in hand-to-hand in a completely different style.

Astra tried to reason once again. “Kara—”

She rushed forward striking at the forward leg with a swift kick. Astra pulled her leg back expecting to be able to strike the extended limb once again. Kara’s kick was too swift, never intending to hit, and quickly dodged Astra’s strike and punches. Kara dodged below the first punch and then she struck where a human liver would be. The punch was inaccurate and her aunt remained standing.

One kick struck Astra’s shin, and it reverbed through her leg at the damage she just dealt to herself. The warrior used this moment to strike herself and spun around on her leg while the other came down in a heavy round-house kick. Kara was too late to dodge and the back of her aunt’s feet connected with her collar bone. A resounding snap was followed by an intense pain.

She muffled a scream in the back of her mouth, biting on her own cheek until she drew blood. Astra struck again while her mind was clouded by the pain. The coppery taste of blood brought her back into the action and a rush of adrenaline shot through her body. The pain was pushed back and the fog in her mind cleared.

Kara dodged out of harm’s way to gather her breath. One arm now hung limp from her body. She briefly tested its movements and was glad it still worked. But every move caused her shoulder to flare up in pain. Her aunt didn’t let her catch her breath and struck again, now towards the still functioning shoulder.

Astra did not expect Kara to defend with her weaker arm. She deflected the first blow but the second connected to her already weakened limb, snapping the fore-arm clean through. She felt her flesh tear where the bone pierced through the skin. Kara didn’t cry out this time—but struck with her other hand three times in quick succession.

All three connected.

The first went to the stomach, the second perfectly on the liver, and the third on the chin. Her aunt went down and she collapsed on the hard crystalline floor. She saw her aunt press an emergency button on her wrist. Kara knew it was there and probably the only reason that Astra had not pressed it was that she wanted to keep this contained. That was no longer possible.

Alarms flared throughout the building. Kara ignored the throbbing pain in her arm and the slick blood coating it. That would all heal if she managed to get away.

The lifted herself into the seat of the pod and closed the canopy. As the protective panes closed around her, she cast an apologetic glance at her aunt who was stumbling back on her feet. “I’m really sorry, but I have to do this.”

Guards stormed into the hallway right as Kara activated the pod’s defenses. The first energy bolt struck and bounced off. She heard Astra yell not to use deadly force, but nothing less would stop her.

Her single hand moved as fast as two, punching in the coordinates of Earth and activating the launch sequence. Her pod was pulled along an invisible track, hovering above the actual track on the ground. When it got to the center of the room, the world pivoted around her and she felled herself pulled back, instead of down.

Her pod sparked as more bolts bounced off it. The reactive armor, a layer of fast moving disposable plates, was being destroyed with every hit and few bolts were actually penetrating into the hull. Kara prayed that this would not be her end—powerless and wounded, blown up with the spacecraft.

Then she was pressed into the back of her seat as she was catapulted from the hanger. The sudden force on her broken arm caused it to hurt once again. She flew past Krypton’s defenses, which were all geared at stopping invaders, not preventing escapees. The turrets tried to target and shoot, but their projectiles missed her as she sped out of range.

Within seconds, she escaped the atmosphere and once again she found herself looking back at the planet. Once again, she would no longer be able to return.

Kara punched in the final command. A wormhole opened in front of her and sucked in the ship. The next two years would be empty while she traveled from one galaxy to the other.

“Stasis activating in twenty seconds.” The Kryptonian AI blared through the cockpit.

For Kara, the two year would near instantaneous. She’d grow older though, because this stasis was not as advanced as the one on the ground which was capable of completely freezing one’s biology. She wondered what she’d find when she got to Earth. Would it be her Earth, or one where she and Superman didn’t exist? Would Alex even remember her?

Would Alex even exist?

The last thought was pushed from her mind, because that reality was too depressing and she didn’t want to enter stasis with that scenario on her mind. No, she would see Alex again even if Alex did not know her—she had to know that her sister and soulmate were real.

Those were the last thoughts on her mind when she was frozen in deep sleep.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's part two. 
> 
> First of all, thanks for all your comments on part one, hopefully this didn't disappoint as a follow up. 
> 
> Some notes: 
> 
> 1\. Superman has conflicting statements about the time spent getting to Earth from Krypton. In the original, he spent many thousands of years in sublight travel--during which human society advanced from stone age to current time (travelling near the speed of light slows down your own ageing, but not the ageing of those not travelling that fast). Recent versions have either instantaneous, or 2-3 years of travel.  
> 2\. For this story to work, I decided to go with the more recent version. I'm not sure if Supergirl addressed this.  
> 3\. Fight scenes are difficult to write, so I don't know why I decided to include so many in this story (more to come next chapter).  
> 4\. Kara is still a bad-ass even without her powers, though a bit more vulnerable. She also just found out that punching and kicking can hurt yourself as well...  
> 5\. Still no alex (sorry!)
> 
> Let me know what you thought and what you think will happen on Earth.


	3. Part Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those who read the previous chapter already: I added an extra scene to it. Plot-wise, not much has changed.

 

 

 

 

The smell of the salty seawater and fresh grass had hit her nose the moment she stepped out of the pod. Kara felt truly conflicted by how much she had missed this planet, compared the planet that should have been her home. Green fields lay before her and blue skies above. The sun was blaring down hard as was typical for the California climate. This place had been home for the first six years after Krypton, before she moved to National City.

Kara had carefully chosen a spot to land, safely away from authorities and human life. It had been a painful awakening when her cryosleep ended, her time in space had drained her of more her strength and her body was still suffering from its injuries. In the time-span it took for her to open her pod and step out, she felt herself become stronger and her wounds started healing. Where previously hear broken bone had pierced her own skin, was now only a faint scar remaining which would fade soon as well. She briefly flexed her muscles and powered up her heat vision, everything seemed to be working.

Her first destination was nearby. It would prove to her if Alex existed, and if anything changed. She didn’t want to go barging into the heart of National City and create a nationwide panic if this reality had not interacted with any Kryptonians yet. Which was why she found herself staring longingly at the house which had been her home for the first six years on this planet.

It looked almost exactly the same.

The same lawn with carefully grown plants which Eliza took pride in keeping nice. White posts held up the canopy above the blue front door. However, instead of tracks and space for one car, there were two. The more glaring omission was the lack of indication that she had lived here herself. The tiles that she’d damaged when she landed just a bit too hard, which Jeremiah had purposely not fixed to remind her, were not there. The tree had no carvings by two sisters that measured their growth against each other.

There was one car in the lawn. Kara focused her X-ray vision and peered through the walls. Her heart jumped as she clearly recognized Eliza reading some printed out documents and working on her laptop in the living room. She squared her shoulders, put on a steady expression, and gave herself a look over in the car’s side mirror. Kara had borrowed—technically stolen, but she planned to return the items—clothes from the store in town and looked very much like the Kara Danvers she used to be. She wore a light grey cardigan over a polo shirt, combined with dark blue jeans. Her Kryptonian outfit was discarded since it was covered in her own blood.

Resolutely she walked up to the door and knocked—softly, of course. Kara heard the footsteps clearly before the door was unlocked. Eliza Danvers opened the door and stared at her expectantly, without a grain of recognition on her face.

Kara had expected this. Prepared for it, mentally. It didn’t hurt any less. The woman who had been her surrogate mother for eleven years, stared at her as if she was just another door-to-door salesmen. She swallowed the bile in her throat and blinked a few times to prevent the hurt from breaking through her own steady expression. With a slightly cracking voice, she croaked: “Eliza Danvers?”

“Yes?” Eliza crossed her arms and stood with a steady stance in the doorway after closing the door behind her, as if blocking the entrance to her house and trying to intimidate her. “And you are?”

“Kara, Kara Sorrel.” She held out her hand for Eliza to shake, but the woman did not take it. This time she couldn’t keep the hurt from flashing on her face, she saw her own pained grimace reflected in the window in the door behind Eliza. “I—uh—am, was, one of Alex’s classmates in high school. I’m trying to get into contact with her again for a reunion and I was wondering if you could help me out.”

Instead of disarming the woman, her cover story seemed to bring up extra walls as Eliza’s blank look turned into a hostile glare. “And you didn’t go through the usual channels? I don’t believe you were a classmate of hers if you show up at my doorstep like this. Are you a reporter?”

A reporter? Why would Eliza think that? “No—I just… she doesn’t exactly have Facebook.” Kara looked at that, of course.

“If she didn’t contact you, then there must be a reason. If you didn’t go through the usual methods, then you’re here to circumvent that.” Eliza snapped at her and Kara shrunk back like a child scolded by her mother. “I don’t have anything else to say to you.”

Eliza turned around and walked back into the house, slamming the door closed behind her. Kara was quicker and managed to stop the door from falling into the lock. Alarmed and slightly frightened, Eliza snapped back at the sound of wood cracking under her fingers. Despite her efforts, she damaged the door slightly. She wasn’t ignorant at how this must look to Eliza. “I just need to know—”

“If you don’t leave now, I’ll call the cops.” Kara saw this was pointless. She activated her vision and scoured the house. Ignoring the woman, she searched for any clues relating to Alex’s existence and her whereabouts.

She found them quickly enough in the pictures on the walls. There were many of Alex and her parents. Both of them.

Most pictures she recognized. Mainly because they were similar but so different at the same time. Alex at her high-school graduation, smiling brightly at the camera. She was wearing the exact same outfit as _her_ Alex, except Kara wasn’t there to press a kiss to her cheek as she was proud at her valedictorian sister.  Alex winning the women’s state surfing championships, except Kara wasn’t there to hold the trophy just out of reach of her slightly less tall sister. Instead, there were images of Alex with her father, mother, or a selfie with the three of them. Similar scenes, different actors. Her sister’s cheerful expression changed halfway through the timeline. At her college graduation she no longer looked carefree and cheerful, but sad and determined.

Kara recognized the building though: Stanford. This meant that Alex had studied there and was possibly recruited into the DEO from there as well, if the timelines still matched up. Maybe things were different though, maybe J’onn wasn’t saved and Hank had no reason to recruit her. Though Alex was smart enough to stand out on her own merits.

“I’m sorry, Eli—Miss Danvers.” She tried to look as apologetic as possible as she backed down from the door. “I don’t know what came over me. I’ll be out of your hair right away.”

Kara turned and sprinted away, leaving the premise with a tail between her legs. She was shaking from the confrontation, though not in anger, but in sadness. The blank expression had nearly killed her.

_What if Alex looked at her in the same way?_

 

 

 

 

Kara had flown to National City. She was too fast for normal eyes to see and managed to touch down unseen in a deserted alley. Barely out of breath—she was still charging up under the yellow sun—she emerged into the busy streets of downtown National City. This too was relatively the same. The CatCo building, Lord Technologies compound, and LexCorp—whose name was not changed because Lex Luthor was probably still in charge.

She mingled in the mass of people on the sidewalks of the large avenues. She quickly snatched a newspaper to scan for any abnormal news. The main headlines were something about the recent elections, an interview with Maxwell Lord about their innovations in space travel and going head to head with Elon Musk, and something about Cat Grant barely surviving an attempt at a hostile take-over by her own board of executives. Nothing about Alex or the DEO, which Kara had almost expected by the fact that her mother—no, in this world she was just Eliza—had mentioned reporters looking to speak with Alex.

Absentmindedly, she found herself almost walking through the doors of the CatCo building, holding out her hands to scan her non-existent employee badge. She stopped herself before anyone seemed to notice. Someone hastily brushed past her, her iron stance knocked the person back.

“Oh, I’m—whoa.” The awkward smile lit up the man’s face. “Whoa, Schott, I’m Winn Sorry. No, I mean, sorry, I’m Winn Schott, Jr.”

Kara chuckled forcefully, trying to ignore the foul taste in her mouth. Winn, the first person she told who she was, didn’t recognize her either. It was charming that he was exactly the same, but that meant he was of no help to her. “It’s alright, I’m Kara.”

She held out her hand to help him upright. Just as was opening his mouth to say something else, a familiar blonde diva walked past them. Kara froze as she saw the familiar sharp gaze of the media giant sweep over her. The woman froze for a second, then nodded appreciatively. “You’re not one of my employees.”

“No, ma’am.” She fell back to her default stance when dealing with Cat. Her professionalism resonated with her old boss. “Just admiring your building.”

“Well, you seem like the CatCo material, if you weren’t keeping one of my employees from doing his job.” Winn shrunk three sizes and hastily said goodbye. “If you ever find yourself needing a job, you can always apply to CatCo.”

Without waiting for a response the owner of the building strode past her through the glass doors into her personal elevator. Their interaction was so similar, but without the familiarity she was used to, without the feeling she could trust her completely with her deepest feelings.

Dejected, she turned her back to the huge tower. Cat and Winn both didn’t recognize her, but they were so similar to who they had been. Kara knew that she could build a friendship with them again as their personalities were the same, but it wouldn’t be the same as it had been. She was most afraid that Alex would be just a similar and different at the same time.

Her next destination was the building of her second job. This building was almost as prominently visible as the CatCo building, but the name on it was unassuming, just as the company it housed. On paper.

In reality, in _her_ reality, it was the DEO headquarters of the West Coast. It used to be Alex’s place of work and maybe it still was. She walked to the building, which looked exactly like it had in her time. Two huge glass towers rose to the sky, connected by a glass structure at the base. There was no visible security, the front they worked under was just a normal government agency concerned with the environment. Kara used her x-ray vision on the building.

On one hand it surprised her how easily she was able to see through the building’s walls, but on the other hand it was because they had no interactions with aliens that could see through almost anything besides lead. Still, there was enough lead in the walls to obscure most inner parts. She could only see that there was a huge base hidden beneath the surface. This confirmed that the DEO was indeed operating from the same building.

Kara had two choices, either carefully approach and investigate the building, or walk in and straightforwardly ask whether Alex was there. Of course, there really was only one option. She barged in through the doors, gaining the attention of the secretary and unassuming security guards. Kara put on her biggest, disarming smile and approached the dark-skinned clerk. As she walked towards the front desk, she briefly blinked at all cameras, frying their circuits with a near-invisible burst of her heat vision.

“Hi.” She saw a brief flash of apprehension, Kara knew that everyone in the lobby was trained in combat procedures, but then it vanished. Kara read the name-tag, probably fake, and wondered what the best way to approach Kelly was. “I’m looking for someone that _might_ be working here.”

“Of course, who are you looking for?”

“Alex Danvers.” She saw the recognition in Kelly’s eyes as she stared for a second at her in confusion.

“Dr. Danvers does not work at this Environmental Agency, it’s not exactly her expertise.” _Dr. Danvers?_ The name and title were appropriate, but why would this secretary refer to her like that if she didn’t work here. Unless Kelly just gave herself away.

“C’mon, we both know that the E in DEO does not stand for environment.” Kara pointed at the insignia on the walls. “So in which of the _12_ floors below the ground does Alex work?”

Kelly’s eyes widened. Immediately the woman’s hand snapped towards something underneath the desk—probably a silent alarm. More personnel on the far side of the room looked at her with tense expressions. She turned around and smiled brightly at them, trying to seem as innocent as possible, before turning her attention back to the poor secretary. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, we’re just the Department of—.”

“Extranormal Operations, yes.” Kara pointed at the guards which had tried to enter the room inconspicuously, maybe rushing in wasn’t such a good idea. She held no fear, because these humans had no experience in fighting Kryptonians, so they didn’t know what Kryptonite was and that they needed it to defeat her. “I’d like you to call your boss, Hank Henshaw I believe.”

“No, need.” Someone had snuck up on her, which was unusual to say the least. She turned around and saw the stern face of the DEO director. She saw the frown on his face as he tried concentrated really hard on something. Kara guessed he was trying to read her mind. His perplexed expression as he failed confirmed to her that somehow J’onn J’onzz had survived and also assumed the identity of the DEO director. “I’m Director Henshaw and in charge of this department you keep giving a strange name.”

Kara took a step closer to the man and he tensed his muscles. She heard the metallic clicks and slides of weapons being primed outside her vision. The DEO was as well trained as ever. Kara lowered her voice. “We both know, Director Henshaw, that this isn’t just another corporate watchdog department. So please, tell me whether Agent Danvers, Dr. Danvers, or whatever, works here.”

“And why should I? I don’t know you, I don’t trust you.” He crossed his arms. “Anyway, despite our shared interests, Dr. Danvers is not affiliated with our office.”

Kara wondered if she believed him. “You’d better not be lying.”

From her central location in the building, she scanned through its walls and floors. She saw that, despite being led by the green Martian, the DEO still locked up many aliens. Granted, some were a serious threat to humans, but she knew that many had no process or trial before ending up here. There was no sign of Alex anywhere, but she didn’t manage to see every nook and cranny of the building.

“Do you happen to know where I can find Alex Danvers?”

The confused face told her that she had seemingly asked a very obvious question.

“Lord Technologies, of course.”

 

 

If Cat Grant loved to be in the center of attention, then Lord simply inserted himself there. His building was the most ostentatious in all of National City, and Kara had no time for the self-centered man’s ego. The DEO building had been a front for an unassuming agency, but Lord made sure everyone knew what his spiel was. It was a hub of activity as people milled about, entering and leaving the building. The guards, however, were tightly wound. Perhaps the DEO had alarmed them of her arrival, even offered their assistance probably. Lord would undoubtedly brush them off, too proud to ask for outside help.

Kara counted on this as she joined the masses of guests and employees and entered the lobby. All throughout the lobby were corporate banners and motivational posters. It was the usual shtick that companies did to encourage their employees by showing they were part of the big machine. The centerpiece was an exposition about human space travel and how Lord Technologies would innovate and bring humanity to the stars.

The most recent achievements were put on large display. Initial tests with radiation suits, ion engines capable of traveling to the nearest planets in a fraction of the time currently required. One thing caught her attention. She zoomed in onto the headline which included very familiar terms, to her at least. _Faster-than-light travel using Quantum Collapse-Tunneling subatomic tests successful in the Hadron Collider in Geneva._ It was the exact technology Kara had just used to get to Earth. Her heart was hammering in her chest as she moved closer to the poster. She didn’t care much for the scientific content, she wanted to know the names behind the team responsible for this discovery.

There were numerous names, but one stood out to her.

_Lead Scientist: Alexandra Danvers._

She reached out and caressed the picture above the name. The auburn haired woman that stared back from the paper looked exactly like her Alex. She recognized the forced smile that didn’t reach her eyes, the pain that was hidden in plain view, but there was also determination in those eyes. Alexandra Danvers was a woman with a mission, and a woman with pain. However, Kara noticed one thing the most.

Alex was beautiful.

She’d always known this, of course, but her memory did not do her justice. Kara gasped as she traced the outline of Alex’s face on the image. Lost in her own mind, she didn’t notice her companion until he cleared his throat.

“Exciting, isn’t it? Space travel.” Kara snapped back and found herself standing next to Maxwell Lord. A man so despicable she had to stop herself from simply snapping his neck. The world would be better off without him. The problem was, of course, that her morals did not allow it. Above all, Lord probably didn’t do anything despicable… yet.

Maxwell wasn’t alone. He was surrounded by his security detail. A group of armed guards who hid their weapons in plain view. Neither had drawn their submachine guns, but she saw they were tense and ready to spring into action. It was irresponsible of them to not clear the lobby and prevent people from congesting the large room, possibly bringing them into the line of fire. But that was Lord, a man only concerned with himself that other people would be just collateral if he could get away with it.

Kara turned away from the picture of her sister and soulmate, and crossed her arms as she looked at the CEO of the company he named after himself.

“So the DEO did call ahead, how kind of them.” On the surface, Max seemed at ease with his security detail backing him up. Though at her unconcerned stance towards the armed men, he couldn’t keep his arms from shaking as he crossed them as well to hide it. Kara smirked for a second, before casting a disarming smile towards the man. “That saves me some pleasantries, you must know why I’m here.”

She took a casual step in his direction. By now other visitors and employees started to catch on that something was happening. Most started to filter out of the room while a few Darwin-award candidates stopped to watch the scene play out. Why were most people so stupid to stand and watch when guns were being drawn?

“Then you must understand why I must ask you to leave.” Lord said as he pointed at the poster. “Dr. Danvers is a critical part of my team, and my employee’s safety is my top priority.”

Kara scoffed, she knew that nothing less was true. Their safety was only important if they were irreplaceable, not as actual people. She knew what kind of man he was, and what he was capable of. If Alex was the lead scientist, than it was most likely that she may be coerced into working for the man.

“Alright, Max. Here’s what’s going to happen.” She walked into the center of the room, her every movement was being followed by the group of six armed men. “You’ll ring up Alex, I’ll talk to her for a bit, and then if she’s okay I’ll leave again.”

The slimy CEO laughed. “Just for the sake of argument, what happens if she isn’t?”

“Then things will become rather unpleasant for you and your company.” Kara spun and waved her hands to the building. She narrowed her eyes at the man dangerously when she’d finished her theatrics. “Elon will find that his competition crashed and _burned._ ”

There was an anger boiling underneath her surface. Kara barely kept her eyes from burning a hole through the man, but she constrained herself to simply glaring. Looks, in her case, _could_ kill. It was in vain though, because Lord dismissed her series of threats.

“Look, miss, you’re clearly not thinking straight here.” He pointed at his men. “These men are armed with real weapons. It would become rather messy and cumbersome if they had to use them. You do know what a gun is, right?”

He made a pistol shooting motion with his finger, like he was explaining it to a child. She imagined that she must look rather crazed out to the human, maybe he was right to think that she may be a danger to his employee. Kara scolded herself for not thinking this through, _again._ Alex always was the one that ran the planning. However, all plans went outside the window when she thought that Alex was possibly kept by Maxwell Lord.

“Those peashooters?” She took a deliberate step towards the guard closest to her. He was just barely older than her, shakily holding the weapon that he was trained to use. Though probably all guards thought that intimidation of so many weapons would be more than enough to scare away all but the most stupid or determined criminals. The scrawny kid trained his weapon on her. Just to be safe she scanned the type of bullets, all normal rounds. “These don’t scare me.”

“You seem a very disturbed person. So you know what, if you let this go right now we won’t press any charges.” This time the CEO seemed a bit more desperate, but she knew this approach had failed.

Kara shook her head. “Sadly, I really need to see and speak to Alex. For your building’s sake, please refrain from shooting as I search for he. That elevator leads to the underground labs, right?” She pointed at the doors behind the security desk.

With determined steps she brushed past the guards, they had their weapons trained on her but none decided to shoot. When it came down to it, humans were quite hesitant to shoot someone that seemed to pose little to no threat. To them, she probably was just a perky young millennial that had escaped the loony bin.

“Stop or I’ll tell them to shoot.” Kara took another step. “Please stop.”

One more step and Kara found herself between Lord’s crew and the door. The man hesitated and for a moment she did feel sorry. He probably thought he was about to order the shooting of a rather innocent girl.

“Put the guns away, Max. You might hurt yourselves. If Alex is fine, as you claim, then you’ve got nothing to fear, right? _Right?”_

“As I’ve said before, I don’t trust my employees with a deranged stranger.”

Anger flared up and her eyes glowed for just a fraction of a second. “I would _never_ hurt Alex.”

She turned her back to the guards and strode towards the elevator doors. Kara heard Lord give the order. A series of ear-shattering cracks of gunpowder exploding in the chambers of the weapons rang through the room. Six salvo’s of three. Followed by the jingling of shells and shattered bullets falling back to the ground. Some ricocheted away from her and shattered nearby marble pillars. Others missed entirely and dug themselves into the thick metal doors of the elevator. The smell of molten metal and burned fabric reached her nose. Her shirt was not as bullet proof as she was.

Kara ran a hand through her hair until she found another crumpled bullet that had smashed itself against the back of her skull. She’d felt the irritation, she once had described the feeling to Alex as ‘someone flicking a paper pellet’. She threw the offensive metal shard into another nearby pillar, shattering the outer tiles on impact.

With satisfaction, she saw Max and his goons gape like goldfish. To his credit, the man recovered and ordered everyone to open fire. Bullets bounced off of her and Kara laughed. She directed them towards the ceiling and glass shattered and rained down on them. A huge glass plate fell on top of her and she didn’t feel a thing as shards of glass shattered all around her. She left the guards unharmed, they were just doing their job.

They had all emptied their clips and the pristine reception area was now littered with shards of class, pieces of plaster and marble. Very Matrix-esque—she loved that lobby scene—if she’d say so herself. The guard were reloading and she ignored them and turned towards the elevator.

She should feel bad, this was something that Supergirl would never do, but she had been separated from her most important person for too long. The one person that grounded her. Maybe she was already ruining her image in this world, before it even existed. If this was the real world, then had clearly blown any chances of becoming the hero she used to be. Maybe this Alex would be afraid of her, maybe she would think she’s a deranged freak if she didn’t know her.

Kara froze. Doubt settled inside her. What if this Alex was here voluntarily, and she didn’t recognize her? The first image she would see her would be as an intruder to her place of work, clothes ripped apart by gunfire. She’d been wrong so many times already—what if this world was fundamentally different from hers and she was the _only_ one that remembered. What if it was all a fever dream?

Her moment of pause allowed the guards to reload and device another plan of attack. One threw a grenade, which she caught on automatic pilot and enveloped it in both her hands. As it exploded, she contained the shards between her palms lest they become uncontrollable projectiles which could hit innocent bystanders. She removed the black soot and dirt, from the shattered and pulverized metal, from her hands. Kara threw a look at the guard that thrown it and then to Lord. “You arm your guards with grenades? Really?”

A flashbang exploded, the extreme white light burned her already sensitive vision. In reflex, she threw her hands up protecting her eyes. Thinking they finally had the upper hand, one of the guards rushed in and punched her. His fingers broke upon contact with a sickening crunch as Kara was too late to dodge it. Why did they think that fists could work if bullets didn’t?

“I’m sorry.” She softly pushed the man out of the way but he still flew through the lobby and crashed into a heavily damaged pillar. 

She heard a noise behind her. The elevator whirred. _Someone was coming up. More guards?_

She focused her ears.

_Thump, thump._

She _knew_ that heartbeat. Better than her own.

She also heard a click behind her, a bullet entering into the chamber of an automatic weapon.

The elevator ‘dinged’. The doors started to open and Kara was right between the elevator and the guards. Huge dents and cracks were already present in the thick metal doors where the bullets had missed her. The mechanism still worked though, and the doors continued to open.

Kara rushed forward the moment the first bullets were fired. She was faster than the bullets and reached the doors first. She slammed her fists into the doors and held them togheter with all her might. Bullets bounced off of her and struck the doors, but none penetrated. She prevented any projectiles from hitting the person whose heartbeat she had longed to hear for so long now. The building shook at the force she exerted on the doors. Her hands dug through the metal all the way to the other side.

She felt someone grip her hands on the other side of the doors. The skin was smoother than she remembered, but the needy grip was burned into her memories from the many times they comforted each other.

“Stop shooting!” She shouted.

 

 

 

It was Alex.

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I upped the chapter count by one. Maybe even more but for now I've got one more chapter to write. I have no idea when I'll get around to it though. 
> 
> Let me know what you thought--if this is something you expected, or if it went in a totally different direction.  
> Also, constructive feedback is always welcome, as long as it's constructive ;)
> 
> Once again: no one checked this work whether it was legible, so any and all mistakes are mine.


	4. Part Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously: 
> 
> Kara woke up on Krypton, she was told she spent a long time in a coma but she remembered a life on Earth instead. She finds out that Earth does exist and decides to go there. She searches for Alex Danvers and the trail led her to Maxwell Lord.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy valentines day! 
> 
> Sorry for the delay in posting this chapter. I should've kept this story at 3 chapters because I had so much trouble at finishing this. However, in my previous iteration there was hardly any explanation as to why they were separated and this chapter tries to answer all of this. Many of you wanted to know the why's, and here's me delivering on that. Hopefully you find the conclusion satisfying. 
> 
> Any mistakes are mine, but you can point them out if you so desire so I can fix them.

Something loud slammed on the table next to her and she shook upright. Repeated blinking was required to remove the blur from her vision as the room around her came into focus. As the remnants of her darkest dreams faded from her mind, she thought she had escaped them finally, her coworkers replaced them.

“Sleeping on the job again, Dr D?” The man said with his famous smirk. While her boss was a contender for worst human being, her coworkers were alright. Luckily, she was given almost free reign in her laboratory as long as she produced results. She threw a pencil at Mitch, accurately striking him in the chest. “Yea, yea, you’re pulling twice as many hours as I. It’s unhealthy that’s what I’m saying.”

Alex chose to ignore the comment as she walked off to her life support, the coffee machine. After pouring herself an awful cup of coffee that had been in the warm pot for too long, she drank large needy gulps while grimacing at the taste. The horrible drink, which she needed to function to any normal capability, didn’t wash away the last bits of her dreams from her mind.

“My work is not done.” She put on a new white lab coat after shrugging out of her old one. If she was going to play the role of crazy scientist, she’d better look the part. What’s more, someone very important was obsessed with the scientist look.

Mitch had joined her next to the coffee maker. He pulled the pot and sniffed it once, a grimace and a pitiful glance at her, which she shrugged off, were followed by him emptying the remainder in the sink and making a new pot of coffee. “I don’t know why you keep punishing and pushing yourself so hard, but the boss is happy with the new results so why can’t you be as well?”

The new results were groundbreaking. Alex had to fight off various reporters—seeing reporters with their inquisitive but familiar outlook brought back repressed memories. She couldn’t blame them, she had just broken Einstein’s famous theory by being able to send an atom from one place to the other faster than the theory of relatively allowed. Her and her team’s results were confirmed by the scientific community and she was now the proud owner of her own theorem. The application of which could make her very rich and famous, if she cared about that at all.

“Not even halfway there, Mitchy.” The large, broad muscled man—who was the opposite of all nerdy stereotypes—sung the first notes of the famous Bon Jovi song to mock her. “A vehicle is a long ways away from a single atom. As well as making a power source capable of generating without requiring us to build a space ship the size of three nuclear power plants.”  

Mitch wasn’t let down by her pessimism. Truth was, she was not pessimistic at all. When she switched majors from bio-engineering to quantum mechanics—to her parents’ complete surprise—she had no idea whether she could pull this off. This was more then she could have dreamed off seven years ago. And she did have ideas about using their current findings as a power source, but that was something that Lord’s engineers could work on while she focused on getting the science right.

And if, _when_ they managed to build the first interstellar spacecraft, she could finally confirm whether what she was promised had indeed been delivered. She just needed to _see_ , to _know_ for sure. Everything she dedicated the past seven years towards would be worth it then.

She glanced at the clock, it was almost nine so that meant that the rest of her team would be coming in shortly. Mitch was always the first to arrive and he always woke her up whenever she fell asleep in the office. Eva and Catharina were the first to walk in. The German and Russian women clashed at first but Alex’s experience with hotheaded recruits proved valuable. Eva, being gay like her, was an anomaly for the Russian woman who had grown up under the impression that some sexual orientations were abominations. Living in National City was a life changer for Catherina and it took a while for her to adjust. The two women were now good friends despite their initial troubles.

“Another sleepover with your best friends, Danvers?” Eva pointed at the various formulae on the whiteboard and, when she had been too tired to erase her notes on the board as she had ran out of space, the poor walls. 

The doors to the lab open once more and Alex tightens the grip around her pen. Every time she sees the smug face of that man she wants to punch his nose in. Her sudden change in demeanor did not go unnoticed by Mitch who shook his head slightly in warning.

“Good morning, geniuses!” The fake cheer in his voice poorly disguised the dollar signs reflected in his eyes. Lord went around the room congratulating everyone. Most of her team didn’t share her reservations about him and Alex had to admit that he seemed a decent person if one didn’t look through the outer shell. Eva and Catharina enthusiastically high-fived Maxwell and Mitch got a pat on the shoulder. When Lord got to her, he looked her over with a gaze that lingered too long on her body.

“I don’t know how you manage to look so good having slept in an office chair.” A chill went down her spine. The creep always seemed to know when she stayed the night over.

“You’ve provided excellent chairs.” She dodged the compliment and the hug that was incoming by simply holding out her hand.

“You still owe me a date, Dr. Danvers.” Lorde said while he shook her outstretched hand.

“No, I don’t.”

Unperturbed by her bluntness, the man took the center of the room. “I congratulate you all on your most recent publication. It has really hit the news. Alex, I’m getting hundreds of requests of various news agencies that want to discuss your recent findings. From the Planet, to the Daily Show, to CatCo.” She did a double take on the last name, bringing up painful memories.

“I’m sure they would love to see you as well, instead of me.” Alex had no intention of taking the limelight and she knew that Maxwell loved to be in the center of attention.

“It’s strange to me you dodge the attention now you’ve gotten a position at my company, you used to love it.” He was wrong about the last part. She had used nationwide news to get where she wanted to be but now it no longer served a purpose. “Remember when you promised to marry me on national television if I proved there weren’t two potentially habitable planets around that red star in the Andromeda galaxy?”

“I remember me proving that I was right.” She had never been happier that she was right. It had taken a large amount of research, but she went from the ‘girl-with-a-stupid-bet’ to ‘researcher-that-discovers-first-planets-in-another-galaxy’ in the national media.

“Yes, well, the offer on my part still stands, even just for one date.” He flinched at her glare and her team snickered at his expense. “No? Maybe you’ll respond differently next time.”

He left without much fanfare and Eva and Catherina approached her, the other gay woman had a sad smile on her face. “When are you going to tell him you’re gay and he has to stop trying?”

“It’s fun to see the man try and fail. Even if I wasn’t gay, I would never go on a date with the likes of him.”

Catherina shook her head. “I don’t understand your disdain for our boss. I mean, he is handsome, rich and smart. Even if he’s a bit egoistical.”

She shrugged and didn’t bother explaining herself any further. Alex knew what Maxwell Lord was capable of.

 

 

It was long past lunchtime when her boss called—something rather unusual because he never seemed to interact with her beyond the bare minimum these days. Alex’s lunch was still packed in the fridge, seemingly forgotten until the sound of the phone on her desk shook her out of concentration. Immediately she was bombarded with urges she had either been oppressing or neglecting. She ignored them once more and picked up the phone. “Danvers.”

Lord skipped the pleasantries and she could hear some sort of worry in his voice. “Have you noticed anything unusual lately?”

She shrugged, something he couldn’t see through the old-school telephones. “Not really. What’s going on?”

“It might be nothing, but there’s been evidence that someone might be targeting you.” The cloudiness from a lack of sleep, food, and hydration disappeared as her mind reverted to instincts she didn’t know she still had. Some training never disappears, apparently.

“What do you mean?” Her hands flittered to the top drawer of her desk, a quick combination— _five, two, seven, two_ —and the locker opened. She reached inside and felt the cold hard metal of the gun’s grip in her hands. Alex knew the weapon was not allowed by company policies, but she took any precaution possible.

“It may be nothing—.” Lord continued, but another voice filtered into the conversation. Alex could not understand what was being said until Lord continued. “It’s probably best if you remain at your desk, it may be more than nothing after all.”

Alex hesitated for a second. Her stunned expression called the attention from Mitch. “You alright?”

Hesitantly, she nodded. Then the lights dimmed and red alarming flashlights casted cones of light through the dark laboratory. The silent alarm had been activated. “Shit.”

She pulled the gun from the drawer, Mitch’s eyes grew ten sizes in surprise at the sight of the weapon. Alex ignored his spluttering as she moved towards the elevator door. “What— why do you—what are you going to do?”

Truth was, she didn’t know. She kept up with her training even if she wasn’t DEO, and right now those old instincts had taken over. Alex only knew that someone was possibly threatening her, and that someone was here.

“I don’t know.” She leant forward and pressed her ear against the metal elevator doors. Metal isn’t a good isolator of sound, instead it carries sound across large distances faster than air could do. Suddenly she jumped back at the shrill sound of gunfire and ricocheting bullets. Even without her ear against the door, she could still hear the sound of guns. She counted at least five men shooting, automatic continues fire, possibly on a rather stationary target.

_It couldn’t be…_

Caution was thrown in the wind as she jammed against the elevator button to move upwards. Mitch stepped forward to interrupt. “Are you crazy? They’re shooting up there. You have a weapon, they might mistake you for an enemy!”

Alex shrugged him off. “I have a very important hunch.” She chambered the gun and released the safety. Catherina and Eva rushed in at the commotion. Alex quickly hushed them. “Sorry, but you can’t stop me from going up.”

Eva turned to the Russian woman. “She’s lost it.”

While waiting for the elevator to come down, Alex couldn’t help but agree. Anything could be out there and she might be walking towards a battlefield without a reason. Still, there was a nagging feeling that this was something important. Once inside the elevator she turned to face her colleagues with a comforting expression. Mitch was eying the nonchalant way she held her weapon while the two women were confused as to what was going on. The doors closed between them.

As she was going up, the gunfire stopped. The loud ring of the elevator reaching its destination shook her out of her stupor. The gunfire had restarted and instinctively she ducked to the sides of the elevator. Suddenly her world shook around her as the doors tried to open but were stopped by something much stronger than them. Metal splintered and fragments rained around her as two hands pierced through the elevator doors.

In an instant she reached out and wrapped her fingers around the hand closest to her. The strong but feminine hands felt secure and familiar under her finger tips. _It can’t be._

But it was. She breathed her name for the first time in ages. “Kara.”

Alex gripped both of the two hands purtruding through the doors firmly and intertwined their fingers. Then she heard a tearful voice call out to the men shooting at the door. _That’s why she kept it closed._ “Stop shooting!”

A command followed. “Hold your fire.”

Alex let go of the hands so that Kara could pull the door open. It’s mechanism was destroyed, but that would not hinder her. Alex’s heart was beating fast in her chest, feeling that it could jump out of her at any moment. She’d been waiting, working towards this moment for almost a decade now. She’d never imagined that Kara would find her—that shouldn’t have been possible, not with the deal she’d made.

With a groan, the elevator doors gave in to the supreme might of the person on the other side. Alex waited bounced on her feet as the doors opened slowly. The moment there was enough space to fit through, she rushed forward and wrapped her arms around the person whose hands were still stuck in the metal.

“Kara.” She felt the muscled body against hers and she pressed up against it fully. Her lips stroked the sliver of exposed skin of Kara’s neck. With a final protest, the elevator doors let go of the Kryptonian’s hands and those arms were now wrapped strongly around her. The elevator itself plunged back into the depths it came from.

“Al-Alex?” She felt Kara’s warm breath against her ears as the blonde breathed the words softly. Alex had no idea how Kara remembered, but she did. Beyond her control, she blinked away the tears forming in her eyes. Alex pulled back to look into those beautiful eyes. Kara seemed to break under her gaze and a loud sob bellowed from the blonde. Immediately Alex shushed comfortingly, telling the alien that everything was alright. “Oh, Rao, Alex!”

“I’m here, Kara.” Kara nodded and sniffled. Then, as sudden as a thunderclap, she felt soft lips pressed against hers. It was just a brief instance, in which her eyes widened in surprise. Kara seemed surprised at her own actions as well and backed off immediately. Alex rushed forward to press another small kiss to those wonderful lips.

She would’ve continued if it wasn’t for the unmistakable sound of the cocking of guns. Old instincts resurfaced and she immediately placed herself between the armed guards and Kara. Which caused the Kryptonian to snicker. “Alex, I’m the one that’s bullet proof, not you.”

Sheepishly she let herself be pushed to the back with Kara taking the upfront position. Maxwell Lord, thoroughly confused at the display, looked as if he’d seen a ghost.

“Danvers, what the hell is going on? And why do you have a gun?” Kara carefully positioned herself between Alex and anyone that could possibly target her. They both knew the stakes were raised now, one of them could seriously get hurt.

“Well, it’s quite a difficult story…” Alex started but then Kara jumped in.

“I’m Alex’s sister from another planet, from another timeline, a timeline in which you Maxwell Lord are a real douchebag and I’m having a real hard time not punching your face in. Ah and apparently we’re not just sisters but perhaps more, I don’t know, that’s kind of recent.” Alex blinked twice at the Kara’s tirade.

The man in the suit didn’t quite know how to respond as he stood there stunned into silence. Alex poked her finger through one of the bullet holes in Kara’s shirt to trace a line along her spine. The blonde jumped up at the unexpected touch. Alex stood on her toes and whispered to Kara. “Maybe you’ve broken him.”

“Humans, so fragile.”

The rich megalomaniac finally got back to his senses and snapped his fingers to his guards, ordering them to spread out, giving them a possible angle on Alex. Kara wasn’t having that at all and for the first time she retaliated. With rapidly blinking eyes she focused laser beams on the weapons, melting them beyond use.

Alex felt hot at seeing the control displayed by Kara, and not because of the heat vision. It’d been ages since she had witnessed how awesome her sister could be. The Kryptonian’s powers had always impressed her, even if she sometimes envied them. But it wasn’t just the fact that she had those powers, it was when and how she chose to use them. Kara could conquer the whole planet by herself, if she wanted. She could have easily killed Max’s security forces instead of melting their weapons, with a literal blink of the eyes.

“Danvers, as your boss I’m telling you to order your alien-sister-monster to stop wrecking my building.”

Alex cast a good look around the wrecked reception area. Destruction was paramount. The glass ceiling had come down, the marble layers of the pillars were broken, the plaster of the walls had shattered and bullet casings and holes were visible on many surfaces. Kara took offense to the statement and put her hands in her side while taking a careful step forward.

“ _Excuse me!”_ The alien pointed at the security forces who had sheepishly dropped their useless guns and were debating amongst themselves to stay with their boss or save their own skin. Alex felt for them, they had not asked for this. “Maybe my memory is faulty, but all I did was walk around. Your people opened fire.”

Alex, knowing the coast was clear and she was in no danger, stepped around her sister and handed her employee badge to her boss. “And with that note, I quit.”

“You… you can’t quit! I don’t allow it—”

Kara shot forward and with one hand around his neck she lifted the young entrepreneur in the air. Her voice was transformed into something darker, something _dangerous._ “No one tells Alex what she can’t do.”

Alex shouldn’t be happy that Kara threatens someone on her behalf. She’s perfectly capable of defending herself. However, this was _hot_. Still, she stepped forward and reached out to Kara’s other hand. “I believe that Maxie here knows that, doesn’t he?”

With a whimper, the man nodded and was put down back on the ground. Kara’s demeanor flipped around to her determined but happy self—Alex posited that these bursts of anger were different and new. For good measure, Kara patted his head like he was a good puppy.

“Now, it’s probably best if we all forget this happened.” Kara pointed at the destroyed cameras. “It seems that somehow the hail of bullets also destroyed your security cams, such that perhaps the only thing still visible on those cameras is how your men opened fire on an unarmed civilian.”

Alex jumped in. “Right, who’s going to believe you anyways? Aliens? Pff. And bulletproof? What an imagination. Those don’t exist.” She shared a knowing smile with Kara, they remembered similar jokes from their past whenever they had to conceal Kara’s identity when she invariably made a small error.

“Anyway, we’d better be leaving, right sis?” Kara wrapped an arm around her middle and she in return wrapped hers around her neck. If the whole experience for Max hadn’t been surreal enough, his legs gave in when Kara, with no apparent force, lifted up from the ground and carried the two of them into the air.

 

 

 

 

 

“Eight years… You lived this life for eight years?” Alex nodded.

“It was like you never existed.” She heard the despair in Alex’s voice. Kara remembered her own pain of discovering that Alex was no longer there and she couldn’t compare to how difficult it was to live a life for eight years like that. “I asked everyone, mom—dad was still there as well. Then I went to James, and I confronted Winn. Superman didn’t exist either.”

Alex told her how she had woken up one day, halfway through her second year in bio engineering, and everything was different. She told her that she suddenly was six years younger and Kara was gone, erased from existence. That moment she switched to physics and did a prediction that reached the media. Alex had told her exactly where she was going to find a star system in the Andromeda galaxy that had two planets orbiting around it. When the technology finally was developed, she was proven correct and propelled herself to fame amongst scientist and the general population.

“So you went to Lord.” Kara said as if it was the most stupid thing anyone could do.

“Of course. I needed money and he has too much.” Alex smiled and pressed a kiss to her temple. “He thought I was going to make him rich with the first Faster-Than-Light spacecraft.”

“But you weren’t?”

Alex shook her head. “I would have taken the first working prototype to Krypton.”

“You basically invented a whole new line of physics to come to me.” Kara laughed and she pulled Alex on top of her. They were secluded, far away from the city and just the two of them.  Alex was facing her, their bodies flush against each other. She had placed her hands on Alex’s hips, softly tracing their shape.

“Of course. I had some help though, I remembered you telling me the basic principles of your FTL-drive.”

Kara nodded, she remembered indulging a young Alex with details that she barely grasped herself. Despite her father’s efforts, she never was much of a scientist. “You also helped me. I remembered fighting styles and self-defense which I used to… _shit.”_

Alex was on full alert right away. “What is it?”

“I knocked out my aunt, Clark, his father, and stole a spacecraft to get here. That’s four accounts of high treason.” Alex burst out in laughter.

“That’s nothing. I promised Lord I would marry him if he proved me wrong about Krypton.”

So that’s how Alex got famous. Kara’s eyes widened. “Always one upping your alien _sister_.”

Alex shook her head and captured her lips in a deep kiss. Kara, despite not being out of breath, was heaving as Alex pulled back. “Sister, huh?”

“Not in this timeline.” Kara whispered. “About that… do you have any idea how we go back to ours? And how we ended up here?”

When Alex looked away from her, she knew something was wrong. It was one of the telltale signs that her sister didn’t want to say something. “Should we really want to go back? I mean, Krypton is not destroyed, your family is alive, and my father wasn’t taken by CADMUS.”

“If this isn’t real…”

“It’s real.” The forceful tone with which Alex said that made her pause. “It has to be real.”

Kara sat up and pushed Alex slightly away from her so that she could take a good look at the redhead. Why would she vehemently push the narrative that this must be real? “Alex…?”

“This is the better timeline, Kara.” The finality in Alex’s tone made her pause for a second. But she couldn’t take that answer on its own, there had to be an explanation and Alex wasn’t telling her.

“Why do you know that? All our friends don’t know us, everything is different, maybe it’s not real and they are suffering without us, maybe the real ones need our help.”

Alex jumped off of her and walked away briskly. “Leave it, Kara.”

Of course she wouldn’t leave it. She spun Alex around to face her, ready to demand answers when she noticed the tear tracks on her sister’s cheeks. “Alex?”

Alex sniffled and wiped her tears. “You fucking died.” Kara stumbled. _What?_ “And it was my fault. Someone captured me and used me against you. Then she beat you, she tortured you, and finally tore you into pieces while making me watch.”

Kara saw that Alex was replaying the scene in her mind. She shivered at the thought of being torn to pieces, of Alex being made to watch.

“You begged.” Kara’s eyes shot up. “Not for _your_ life, but for _mine._ I fucking got you killed and still you begged for my sake.”

“Of course I would.” Alex shook her head.

Alex sat down and apparently decided she did need to tell the whole truth. “I found Mxyzptlk and made a deal. He would change history such that you would survive. However, the only way to secure your survival was to make it so that Krypton never exploded. He told me that my price was remembering you. You weren’t supposed to remember. The details of this deal came to me later over the years.”

Out of all possibilities, Kara did not expect this. She felt the despair that emanated from her sister. She knew that Alex couldn’t have lived knowing that she was the cause of her death, just like Kara would never live with herself if she caused Alex’s. It felt strangely logical, she would probably have done anything to return Alex to life. No price would be high enough.

“Then why continue to work for Lord if you knew what happened?”

“I had to make sure.” Alex whispered. “I had no way of knowing whether you would be alive—I needed to be sure. Even if I came to Krypton and you didn’t remember me, I _needed_ to know you lived.”

Kara understood that need. She had felt the exact same ever since she woke up. Something inside of her needed to confirm that Alex was real. It had steered her every decision since waking up from that coma. “I’m alive, Alex.”

“I’m sorry.” Kara shook her head, Alex had nothing to be sorry about. “What will you do now?”

Resolutely, she stood up and raised Alex back on her feet and wrapped her arms around her tightly. “We will make a new life here. You have excellent credentials and can work basically anywhere, I can try for my old job at CatCo. We can make new friends, or try to reforge old ones. No matter what, we’ll be together in this second chance.”

The women in her arms let out a relieved sigh. With hopeful eyes Alex stared up at her. “Promise?”

“Promise.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That wraps it up. Let me know whether you liked the conclusion or not.


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